


Escape (The Pina Colada Fic)

by makebelieveanything



Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [5]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Hacker AU, I know less than nothing about computers, M/M, cyber pranks, fluffy indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26035678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makebelieveanything/pseuds/makebelieveanything
Summary: Neil hates his job.His real achievements include hacking the Pentagon (somehow they never caught him, so it’s not like he can stick that on his resume, can he?); multiple bank jobs (he only siphoned money from half of those, he wasn’t a complete idiot); and hacking the President’s secret service (that one had been a dare, but you’d be surprised what secret service agents will accomplish on their days off). His practical resume however, is unsurprisingly lackluster - at least compared to his real one - so the low level IT job he goes to 8 hours every day is the best he can accomplish.or a Hacker AU where Neil Josten is an above average hacker attempting to be a completely normal citizen, surprisingly he isn't very good at it.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815259
Comments: 25
Kudos: 293
Collections: AFTG Bingo Blackout 2020 - Cupcakes, All For The Game Bingo 2020





	Escape (The Pina Colada Fic)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last of my bingo contributions for the Fluffy Cupcake's attempt at bingo black out. For the Hacker AU space.
> 
> Thank you to my beta [justadreamfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justadreamfox) for always being willing to read my self indulgent fics. 
> 
> Fair warning, I know very little about computers and absolutely nothing about hackers. This is completely fictional and self indulgent. Just enjoy the fun.

Neil hates his job. 

His real achievements include hacking the Pentagon (somehow they never caught him, so it’s not like he can stick that on his resume, can he?); multiple bank jobs (he only siphoned money from half of those, he wasn’t a complete idiot); and hacking the President’s secret service (that one had been a dare, but you’d be surprised what secret service agents will accomplish on their days off). His practical resume however, is unsurprisingly lackluster - at least compared to his real one - so the low level IT job he goes to 8 hours every day is the best he can accomplish. 

Really, it’s just boring. Neil could do the coding in his sleep, so he can’t be blamed when he uses his free time to start hacking into random nearby IP addresses, right? It’s not like he goes after anything extremely illegal. Mostly Neil just enjoys messing with people: hacking into their cameras, closing programs spontaneously, getting access to their social media profiles and following a bunch of bots. 

It is 4:30 p.m. on a mundane Wednesday in the middle of September and Neil doesn’t get off work for another hour, so he decides to hack a nearby coffee shop and finds a Tinder profile to mess with. It doesn’t take Neil long to completely change the man’s profile to include just about every cheesy, clichéd line Neil can come up with: enjoys long walks on the beach, loves puppies, dreams of making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. (Nevermind that he stole that last one from an 80’s song, or that Neil has no idea why someone would enjoy attempting that feat in what was essentially a crab infested sandbox.) Then he sets to liking the profiles of every soft-looking, catholic-altar-boy, still-lives-in-his-mother’s-basement kind of guy that he can find before the end of his shift. 

By the time Neil returns to work the next day he can’t even recall the name of the man whose profile he hacked, but if the state of his desktop is anything to go by that may have been his first mistake. When Neil boots up his computer - which is not only protected by the extensive firewalls and security measures employed by the security tech company he works for, but also by a couple extra encryption codes and back door security measures that Neil added - he finds every single one of his desktop applications has been rearranged into two letters against a background of graphic finger gestures: “F U.”

At first Neil is speechless, absolutely stunned, that anyone was able to get past all of his security measures. Speechless quickly morphs into terrified as he imagines the criminals of his past that could have found him, but logic quickly reminds him they’re all dead. Neil is not Nathaniel, and Neil is safe. Finally, his fear transforms into a bemused sort of respect as he checks all his personal information, bank accounts, emails, company server information, and finds that the hacker - after acquiring access to literally the company’s entire server - _only_ rearranged Neil’s desktop.

Neil spends a majority of the morning changing and upgrading his encryptions and fail safes then begrudgingly accomplishes the assigned projects that his boss would expect to take him all day. When he successfully has the rest of the afternoon to himself, Neil resolves to track down the “blond asshole” as he has labeled his challenger (definitely not because the spiky blond hair was the only attribute Neil could recall from the guy’s profile). 

It takes Neil much longer than he would have expected to back trace the guy’s IP address from the coffee shop to a specific phone. Tracking that to a name and address consumes his remaining hours, and Neil is almost impressed with the amount of encryptions, firewalls, and digital landmines he has to bypass to get what he’s hunting for. Once he gets in though, Neil cannot determine how he wants to retaliate. He could change all of the alarms on his devices to random hours of the morning, or subscribe all his email address to every political campaign he can find, but that seems too simple. Alternatively, Neil could bypass his security alarms, or lock him out of his own bank accounts, but Neil hesitates at openly violating this man’s privacy. Especially considering given the option, the blond asshole had blatantly chosen not to violate Neil’s own privacy.

Eventually Neil settles on hiding an invitation to a “dark web” server in a line of code built into a funny cat video that he sets as the background and screensaver to every one of the blond asshole’s electronic devices. Neil is honestly unsure why he does it - he mentally convinces himself it’s a test, or a challenge - that the blond asshole most likely won’t find the invitation. 

Deep down though, Neil hopes he _will_ find the invitation - assuming blond-y knows how to even find the dark hole in the web that Neil left a door open to. Neil realizes he craves the challenge; he desperately needs someone, even a virtual someone, to recognize his expertise. Someone out there in the world has to understand Neil. He would never admit it out loud, but turning evidence to the FBI and escaping the crime family he’d grown up in has led to the most boring life he could ever imagine, and Neil is lonely. 

Three days later when no one has found the virtual door Neil created as a meeting place, he begins to lose hope. Five days later, it takes all of Neil’s patience to not completely delete all traces of the opening. On day seven, Neil returns to hacking into boring social media profiles, but it’s not nearly as entertaining this time with the presumption that none of these people would be able to match him. 

Finally, on day ten, out of complete spite against a world that stole everything from him and left him nothing and no one, Neil does something incredibly stupid and hacks the security camera to the super max prison where his last living relative is spending the rest of her days: Mary Hatford, his mom. Seeing her face - the same dirty blonde hair and the striking blue eyes - above the obnoxiously nauseating, orange jumpsuit only makes Neil feel worse. He stares transfixed, watching her walk the prison yard - seemingly cavalier and chatting with another inmate - for less than two minutes before he disconnects and slams his laptop shut. 

Neil leans back in his chair in the corner of the coffee shop. He refuses to admit, even to himself, that he picked this location to surreptitiously search the patrons for a glimpse of the blond asshole. It would admittedly help if he remembered exactly what the guy looked like, but Neil had zero luck re-locating the profile no matter how many tricks he has tried. In an attempt to mitigate his dark mood, Neil eventually orders a green tea and settles into his seat to code a new project he’s been working on: something legal and above board that would ideally help him get a better paying job. 

Between the headphones blaring wordless, instrumental music in his ears and the haze of single-minded concentration that came with compiling long trains of intricate coding, Neil didn’t notice the passage of time, or the two prim, black-suited GI Joe types that wandered into the shop. It isn’t until one of them is pulling up a chair to straddle it and the other is standing menacingly over Neil’s shoulder that he snaps out of his fixation.

“Hey fellas, long time no see. Is that a new suit Browning? I didn’t know standard government issue included pinstripe ties, or were they all out of black ones that could fit your gigantic neck?” Neil taunts blithely, using the few seconds of distraction to quickly put his computer in lockdown. He barely gets the words out, punching the last key to make his screen go blank, before the agent behind him hauls him out of his seat by the shirt collar. 

“You know, we were going to be nice and quiet about this. Can’t you just play nice for once?” Browning asks, the tightness at the corner of his mouth and his hand covertly smoothing the candy cane striped tie he wore betraying his seemingly unperturbed contenance.

“Nice has never been a part of your playbook, why should it be in mine?” Neil snarks back elbowing the guy behind him who is attempting to man-handle him out the door. “I can walk on my own you giant oaf.”

“Get moving pipsqueak,” came the gruff reply, and Neil complies resentfully, shuffling towards the door as Browning scoops up his laptop and charger, shoving them in Neil’s bag to take with them. 

“You better not break my laptop Browning, if the FBI can’t afford a black tie for you they definitely can’t afford to replace that motherboard,” Neil huffs as they escort him out of the coffee shop and into the back of a giant, black, tinted window SUV. “What type of steroids do they put in your Wheaties? Are you all half giants? Two Hagrids could fit in this SUV. Why is everything with the FBI always three times bigger than the average human; do they recruit you out of the circus freak show or something? They probably have a height requirement when you enter the academy, like at those amusement park rides...” 

“If you don’t shut your mouth immediately I’ll make sure you spend the entire evening in lock-up with the drunk flasher before we get around to questioning you,” Browning cuts Neil off threateningly. 

“Violation of my civil rights,” Neil mutters under his breath, but falls silent as he watches the vehicle weave its way towards whatever nearby police station the FBI commandeered for their own personal use. 

Despite his threats, Browning doesn’t stick Neil in lock-up immediately upon arriving at the police station. Instead he leaves him in an interrogation room, abandoning him to die of boredom before returning with another standard issue suit to ask him a million questions: how to access his computer? (Which unsurprisingly none of the FBI’s specialists could crack.) What he was doing at the coffee shop? Did he hack into a super-max security prison? Neil denies all involvement, knowing full well the suits would be incapable of tracking the hack farther than the coffee shop’s IP address. Browning tries, as he always does, to catch Neil in a lie or use manipulative wordplay to make him slip up, but in the end they give up on getting enough to charge Neil with anything.

This was a back and forth they’d played multiple times in the past: Neil pushed the boundary of what he could get away with as a civilian - even an ex-FBI asset civilian - and Browning shows up to attempt to set him straight again, or catch him in a lie. However, Neil realizes - albeit belatedly - that he _may_ have been a bit too snarky when Browning escorts Neil to his own cell, claiming they could legally hold him for 24 hours without charging him instead of returning his belongings and allowing him to leave. The, _“Enjoy your overnight stay Neil, we’ll see if you’re more willing to be cooperative tomorrow morning,”_ that Browning throws over his shoulder is said with such mirth that Neil almost loses his eyes to the back of his skull he rolls them so hard.

So here Neil lays on the cell’s lone bench, one leg propped up as he stares at the dismily painted ceiling. The hard surface underneath him only slightly tempers the absolutely abominable mood he is in. Neil reminisces on his dream - the “blond asshole, hacker extraordinaire, potential virtual equal” pipe dream - finally realizing how disappointing it is to have it crumble around him. Seeing his mother’s face had only worsened that mood leaving Neil stewing in an emotional spiral of anger, self annoyance, and loneliness. 

It is well past 2 a.m., the night watch long since having started their shifts and devolved into card games and impromptu naps to pass the time, when a portly guard walks up to Neil’s cell and knocks his flashlight against the bars. 

“Up and at ‘em.You’re good to go,” the guard says gruffly, unlocking the door to Neil’s cell. Neil sits up in shock, glancing around for any sign of one of the FBI goons, not believing Browning wouldn’t milk the full 24 hours for all it was worth. 

“You’re kidding,” Neil says distrustfully. 

“Nope, orders came through the system twenty minutes ago. You’re free to go,” the guard says holding out Neil’s bag. Not one to question his turn in luck, Neil gets up quickly, slipping out of the cell and past the guard. He grabs his backpack and quickly checks to make sure his laptop is intact before escorting himself out of the police station. It is only when the brisk early morning air hits his face that Neil realizes it truly isn’t some elaborate prank inspired by Browning. 

“So, Neil is it? Tell me, how does someone who expertly hides a back door to the most encrypted dark web server I’ve ever seen - in the coding of a cat video of all things - get himself arrested by the FBI in the middle of a public coffee shop?” a voice asks from Neil’s left. 

Neil almost gives himself whiplash turning towards the voice, searching the shadows for a face to connect with the honey tinted male voice. “Probably about the same way a blond asshole who is capable of getting an FBI suspect released from mandatory 24 hour lock-up gets his Tinder profile hacked in a public coffee shop,” Neil retorts amiably.

The figure leaning against the brick wall of the police station pushes himself upright, dropping his finished cigarette on the sidewalk and snuffing it out with his boot before stepping into the light of the street lamp. Neil’s eyes snag momentarily on the man’s spiky blond hair, but skip quickly to the sharp cheekbones, the slightly scruffy jawline, the impeccably well fitted black ensemble, before finally settling on the whiskey-colored hazel eyes staring at him from under thick blond lashes. 

“Name’s Andrew, although ‘blond asshole’ has a certain ring to it,” the man, _Andrew_ , offers, staring at Neil with an expectant glint in his eyes that is part challenge, part mischief. “You know this is where most people would thank me for the spectacular rescue.”

“Blond Asshole is definitely appropriate. A little cocky for someone that took eleven days to find a simple code hidden in a cat video,” Neil teases, slipping his backpack on completely and crossing his arms. 

“Fine then, truth for truth, tell me what you were doing to catch the attention of the FBI in under five hours and I’ll show you how I got you out,” Andrew proposes.

“You’ll have to offer more if you want that truth. I’m starving, you pay for breakfast, and coffee, and I’ll think about it,” Neil challenges, a smile slipping unbidden onto his face. 

“Fine,” Andrew agrees, turning on his heel and stalking towards the nearby 24 hour diner. 

Despite all his survival instincts, and the exhaustion that is pulling at his bones, Neil follows the _beautiful,_ blond asshole, catching up to match him stride for stride as the swirling, emotional blackhole finally dissipates under the blossoming feeling of hope. 

Maybe this civilian life isn’t so boring after all.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, please comment, or talk to me on tumblr at [makebelieveanything](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/makebelieveanything)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Escape (The Piña Colada Fic) (The Turncoat Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378796) by [iridescent_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescent_blue/pseuds/iridescent_blue)




End file.
